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Will DayZ and Rust communities improve over time?

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One of the big vogue genres at the moment is survival sims. Games like DayZ and Rust, which pit players with and against each other and the elements to stop from being eaten. Or shot. Or hit with a giant rock. And it's bringing out both the best and the worst of people.

One quick look at any story from either game and you'll find some glowing examples of humanity, from people swooping in with the helicopter that it took them hours to repair and saving a group of strangers from a horde of zombies, or people sharing supplies with new players that are still as yet to earn their coveted pair of pants.

But those are rare examples. The vast majority of experiences related to either game involve some expletives and a quick death, because someone just shot you from somewhere you couldn't see and you have to start all over again, losing hours of gameplay. Further still are the vindictive stories, of players imprisoning one another in Rust shacks, feeding them but not allowing them to leave, or of holding them hostage only to take all of their stuff and then kill them.

Games like DayZ and Rust turn gamers into assholes it seems, but not the kind you'll find in other titles. The “toxic” players you find in these games are doing it (mostly) out of a sense of survival, 'if I don't kill that guy, chances are he's going to kill me' and it's a valid strategy, especially as the longer you play, the equipment you gather becomes increasingly valuable. Compare that to League of Legends or DotA, where people are supposed to be on your team and they're screaming profanities and other horrific expressions of nerd anger at you, just because you aren't quite sure what you're doing and I think it's obvious which community has the worse players.

So in reality, games like Rust and DayZ offer an insight into what a worldwide apocalypse or world end event might actually be like. We'd all run around braining each other because it's better than getting brained yourself.

But as every apocalyptic TV show, game, film or book has shown us, as time goes on the apocalypse becomes more normal, we start to find new ways to communicate and alliances are formed. The chaos starts to abate, at least enough that something resembling humanity as it was begins to emerge.

Of course that's a message for a fictional medium not powered by the actions of individuals and new players that will continually enter into the game/situation, so that sort of thing might be harder to achieve in either of these games, but it's worth considering: will we see the communities evolve in DayZ and Rust?

DayZ, I'm not so sure, because while it's a lot less brutal than its cave-men beginnings counterpart, it doesn't have the building blocks for rebuilding a society. Rust does. You can build buildings, which in itself is something that lends to community projects – just look at Minecraft. Would it be that surprising if in six months time we get out first Rust town springing up?

It would certainly be interesting to see an in-game community begin to emerge on a server. All it would take is some high level players to enforce it too. Put them as guards at the gate and anyone entering has to drop all weapons. It might be difficult to enforce with the game in its current state, but introduce a way to make sure people aren't hiding something in their loin cloth and you're golden.

But the incentive for this sort of organised play will have to come from the players, because the developers of Rust have made it very clear they won't incentivize fair play or make people out as the bad guy if they kill others. DayZ does that, giving you a Bandit skin for your trouble, but it hasn't stopped people being trigger happy jerks to one another.

What's really interesting about this is it goes against the grain of every big multi-player game released over the past few years. MMOs have level caps for attacking other players, or servers where it's not allowed and even Nether, a game very similar to both Rust and DayZ has giant safe zones that mean as long as you hang around near one, you can duck back in if needed.

Not so with Rust or DayZ though. It's all war all the time. But it doesn't have to be, it'll just take the players to decide whether the game will remain difficult to get into because some troll with a sniper rifle shoots you while you're cutting down your first tree, or if the community surrounding the game evolves with it and starts to really tame the wilderness that the game drops you in.

Because honestly if we just bash each other's brains in, what's separating us from the zombies?

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Reading this post in 2017 makes me laugh, when DayZ has managed to create a semi-functional system where people do not shoot on sight, where as Rust has devolved into "Everyone kills everyone constantly", where big clans roam the land kill everyone they can see, no matter who they are. Those expensive rockets are wasted to kill few naked starters.
Communities do not form, instead, you get bunker complexes that dot the land and only time a new or solo player can move out is when clans are sleeping (literally), since nobody is manning the sniper tower and shooting anyone who dares collect that idle peace of wood in middle of nowhere.

Rust is a good game you have to take it as it is...you will get killed ..you will get raided..you will have to deal with ********. But the thrill of raiding someones base as they try to fend you off.. attemped double crosses that backfire this is what this type of game brings...The more you play the better you get but at the end of the day its always down to luck

Gonna agree with MJ on this one it does look like he's holding a stick with an arrow... the rest of the texture is soo alike it literally meshes with the texture of the shack.. so bad texture work if you ask me.

on the 4chan server we've built a small town. Someone eventually had gotten appointed the leader and began the trouble of politics, favoritism and just plain being a dirty leader. It's kind of like a ghetto too, you live amongst a ton of players but you don't trust any of them.

I just got Rust yesterday. I've spent about 5 hours playing it and I honestly don't know where I stand on it. I jumped right into a non-pvp server, tolling is bad enough in games like WoW on PvP servers and hearing about the epidemic of assholeness going on I wasn't going to even bother. People in general are pathetic and too weak minded or willed to work together as they should. So I wanted to remove that factor out right. The first few hours of play were very interesting, very very mincraftesque. First off, the game needs a proper tutorial bad, but sadly "early access" really seems to just mean incomplete product that you pay for anyway. I know people may respond "well that's what you paid for" and you are correct, I will never pay for early access again, thanks for pointing that out since it isn't ******* obvious. Anyway- The first few hours were fun, without PvP the game reminds me a good deal of Stalker, which is a serious compliment. The problem as with any online game is the people, even on PvE they are pretty much useless. After three hours I wasn't able to get much more help than an explanation as to how to cook food. Any assistance being given wasn't being given to me. Then I log on a few hours later after having built a shelter AND a door only to find my character died and my gun+ammo is gone. All that inspires is a rage quit. I knew this was a design aspect when I got it, but I just never thought it would be SO infuriating. It sounded interesting actually, but after experiencing it, I find it is actually as upsetting and meaningless as random death in real life. There's no 'challenge' when you just die 'because' in a game, a challenge is something you can avoid, in Rust death seems unavoidable. Still, my investment into Rust was that after researching both it and DayZ that I continue to hear that Rust is being updated more often, my hope being that once all the features are in the PvE aspect will become much more fleshed out. Still, if something is NOT done to prevent trolling/hackers and people using exploits to do things they shouldn't, it will just remain a broken game and a waste of $20. As a person who was interested in the concepts of Rust and DayZ but was NOT a fan of either to begin with, if you're in that boat of curiosity like me, I recommend waiting. The community needs to grow up and become decent people first, and judging from the internet in general, that will be never.

lol, another ***** complains that an Early Access game isn't fleshed out. Why don't any of these losers bother to read the disclaimer that says "Hey ******! This game ain't done yet! Don't buy this if you are a whining little fuckface!"
Seriously it isn't that hard to figure out you little douche.

Seriously, what the hell is wrong with you? The guy has a point, Early Access games are flooding steam and people aren't even bothering to make full games YET they charge full price for them such as DayZ.
Early access is literally cancer, it IS cancer and independent studio's will only get to be massive laughing stocks as they churn out more **** that will -NEVER- leave "early access."

what the **** is tolling in wow? besides that. Early access games are mostly ok. It's the utter garbage everyone throws money at on kickstarters... just makes me vomit. Just look at wasteland 2 for instance.